HILADELPHIA, July 4 -- Beginning and average teacher salaries
rose more than 3 percent last year,
but they still fell short of earnings by
other college-educated workers and,
adjusted for inflation, remain below
teacher salaries from 1972, according to a survey released today by the
American Federation of Teachers.

The average annual paycheck for
first-year teachers in 1998-99 was
$26,639, while teachers with an average of 16.2 years on the job earned
$40,574, the survey showed. New Jersey, Connecticut and New York led
the nation for average teacher pay,
around $50,000, while Mississippi and
the Dakotas had the lowest average
salaries, below $30,000. Among cities
with more than 100,000 residents,
Yonkers had the highest starting salary for teachers at $37,045.

"It's clearly, I think, a national
emergency," Sandra Feldman, head
of the teachers federation, said at the
union's biennial convention. "We
have to ask ourselves, What are our
priorities here as a nation?"

Although the union has been conducting the salary survey for a half
century, this year's release comes
amid an intense national debate over
how teachers should be compensated. Facing a national shortage of
some 2.5 million teachers over the
next decade, school administrators
and state legislators have been
searching for creative ways to recruit and retain high-quality people.

Alabama recently enacted a law
that will bring its salaries up to the
national average by 2007 (provided
that tax revenues remain flush). The
governors of California and New
York are essentially engaged in a
bidding war, offering tuition reimbursements, home loans and incentives for advanced certification. Vice
President Al Gore, the presumptive
Democratic nominee for president,
has suggested strong involvement by
the federal government, with $5,000
or $10,000 signing bonuses for teachers who agree to work in hard-to-staff schools.

Meanwhile, six states and about a
dozen local districts are experimenting with various types of merit-pay
plans for teachers. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has suggested making teaching a year-round
profession -- automatically increasing the pay by about 20 percent for
the added time at work.

"I think we're seeing state legislators in a growing number of states,
and governors in a growing number
of states, being willing to do something about it," said Robert Chase,
president of the National Education
Association, the other major teachers union, which expects a contentious debate over pay-for-performance at its convention this week in
Chicago. "We're seeing the kind of
movement we want to see. Hopefully
it will expand."

Over the past year, Connecticut
and the District of Columbia each
raised starting salaries for teachers
more than 10 percent, the American
Federation of Teachers survey
showed, while Alabama's first-year
pay rose 9.2 percent, Iowa's 8.2 percent, and Minnesota and North Carolina both more than 7 percent. Overall average salaries also shot up 11.3
percent in North Carolina, 9.1 percent in Alabama, and 7.9 percent in
the District of Columbia.

"It's just not high enough," Ms.
Feldman said. "If it were, we would
be able to fill all the teaching vacancies."

Alaska was the only state where
the average salary dropped, down 1.8
percent to $48,275. The starting salary dropped $10 in North Dakota, to
$19,136.

Still, the starting salary for teachers has not recovered from its inflation-adjusted high of $26,880 in 1972,
and remains just 72 percent of what
average college graduates expect to
earn in their first jobs. Comparing
mid-career professionals with similar experience, teachers earn 59 percent as much as engineers and attorneys, 61 percent of the salary of
computer analysts, and 82 percent of
accountants' pay, according to the
teachers federation.

"I made a lot more money as a
pretty bad salesperson than I do as a
pretty good teacher," said Julie
Blaha, 30, a first-year math teacher
in Anoka, Minn., who spent the previous five years selling steel.

Steve Ray, a history teacher at
Lincoln High School in Yonkers who
is president of the union's local, said
he had seen a change in the quality of
teachers as the school system has
increased salaries some 50 percent
over the past decade.

"Before, if you couldn't get a job
elsewhere, you came to Yonkers,"
Mr. Ray said. "The new teachers
we've been hiring over the last six to
eight years are top-quality people
who look at Yonkers as somewhere
they want to spend their careers."

While Yonkers previously lost
teachers to the surrounding Westchester suburbs and even New York
City, "now you almost have a flip-flop," Mr. Ray said.

New York City's starting salary of
$30,265 -- 18 percent below that of
Yonkers -- ranked 23rd among the
100 large cities. "For New York City
experienced teachers," he said,
"coming to Yonkers is a promotion."